


Stealth

by The_Winter_Writer



Series: Bingo Challenge [7]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: (this is a lovely universe in which it really was drinking and driving), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, BAMF Bucky Barnes, BAMF Tony Stark, Canon-Typical Violence, Established Relationship, Hurt Tony, M/M, Missions Gone Wrong, Not Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie) Compliant, Not Captain America: The Winter Soldier Compliant, Not Iron Man 3 Compliant, Possessive Winter Soldier, Protective Bucky Barnes, Tony Stark Feels, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes, Winter Soldier didn't kill the Starks, protective winter soldier
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-12
Updated: 2017-12-12
Packaged: 2019-02-13 20:52:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12992304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Winter_Writer/pseuds/The_Winter_Writer
Summary: The words ‘routine’ and ‘easy’ should be banned from Maria Hill's vocabulary. Never again was Tony going to trust any of those supposedly ex-spies when they claimed a mission was simple and he sure as Hell wasn't going into any base without his armor no matter how many reports claimed it was completely empty.





	Stealth

**Author's Note:**

> I was working on two of these bingo square fills at the same time and it appears as though the one without smut was finished first. I figured a protective Winter Soldier WinterIron fic might be just the thing.
> 
> My seventh bingo square in my quest for a W-shaped bingo is B2: Protective Winter Soldier.
> 
>  
> 
> Note: There is one Russian word but if you hover over the text you'll get the translation.

Why was it always the routine, easy missions that ended in pain and blood? If another person even thinks about telling him a mission is going to be routine or easy Tony was going to shove his foot all the way up their— _“Fucking Hell!_ ” pain burst white hot and bright through his body, stealing his breath and causing his eyes to burn with tears he wasn’t going to let fall.

Tony blinked trying to clear the black spots from his vision and the tears that were in no way threatening to escape.

He wasn’t going to let them escape.

“ _It’s an empty base, Tony. We just need you to get everything off the abandoned servers, Stark. This is a stealth mission. You don’t need your suit for a routine extraction._ ” Tony’s voice wavered as he mocked the words that had clearly been a huge fucking lie.

He was never going anywhere without a fucking Iron Man suit for the rest of his fucking life. This was ridiculous. The base sure as fuck wasn’t abandoned and he needed his suit yesterday.

At this point he was pretty sure his luck was running out.

Tony’s head fell back, knocking against the hard ground, as his breathing turned shaky and uneven. Pain was viciously racing through him, spiking and twisting, in ways that made him want to knock himself unconscious but he couldn’t risk it.

He wasn’t safe, he was so far from safe it wasn’t funny and an unexpected burst of hysterical laughter escaped before he locked his teeth down because no one needed any additional help finding him. There wasn’t a question that Hydra would _love_ to get their hands on him and Tony wasn’t going to help them.

The sound of boots racing towards the hallway he’d managed to drag himself to, leaving a trail of blood, had his heart hammering and his eyes darting around for some kind of weapon even as his vision swam causing the hallway to shift nauseatingly in front of him.

A body covered near head-to-toe in black imposing leather landed between the incoming owners of the boots he knew belonged to Hydra and his agony filled body that just wanted to pass out for the next decade.

It was the glint of light reflecting off of a gleaming, metal arm that had him releasing a breath of relief and his tense body relaxing to a pained slump on the ground. He wasn’t alone. It wasn’t completely hopeless.

_Bucky_

Bucky had followed. He’d never been more appreciative of someone ignoring orders then he was in that moment. Tony winced when moving had his body reminding him that moving wasn’t an option at the moment.

He glanced up in time to see Bucky turn to look down at him and it was the steely, furious eyes of the Winter Soldier that greeted him.

“Snowflake.” Tony breathed out in surprise. It had been a few weeks since the Soldier had made an appearance. The last time had been…when Doom had managed an EMP that had left Tony trapped and unable to move in the middle of a Doombot warzone. Tony had felt horrified awe at the violence rained down upon Doom when the villain had ended up in a crumpled heap of moaning agony.

Tony almost felt sorry for whoever was racing towards his location but he didn’t have much time and couldn’t bring himself to care about Hydra soldiers taking their lives into their own hands. Within seconds of seeing the first of the incoming Hydra soldiers the Winter Soldier was in motion, darting forward and immediately killing the armed man in front.

There were shouts, orders quickly issued and immediately discarded, when the Soldier began eliminating them in mass and with extreme violence. It was always a bit jarring to see the way the Soldier killed threat after threat after threat without breaking stride or pausing as he merely switched tactics when the situation called for it.

Tony moved and pressed his back up against the wall as best he could.

He bit down, locking his jaw and tensing, to hold back the whimper that threatened to escape. His side was on fire, his arm was both broken and dislocated, and that wasn’t even getting into the blow he’d taken to the head in the melee that had ensued when the door to the server room had opened. Tony’s leg wasn’t fairing much better at this point but he didn’t want to think about _that_.

At least he’d taken out six on his own and he’d only had a keyboard, a stapler and his fists. The explosion had been unexpected and he was going to be feeling that unexpected attack for weeks.

More and more Hydra soldiers flooded the hallway, _empty my fucking ass_ Tony thought viciously, as he watched the Soldier switch to the large, wicked looking blade Tony had given him months before.

The once clean blade dripped blood, soaked the length of the blade and to the hilt, as it cut and slashed and dug into body after body. Tony cradled his arm as best he could and struggled to keep his head up. Sleep was sounding better and better as he watched the Soldier eliminating each threat.

If he failed or they managed to subdue him it would be a nightmare scenario. Hydra having both the Winter Soldier and Tony Stark could never happen.

Tony forced himself to check that he still had the drive full of Hydra files containing, hopefully, all of the information they needed since Hydra had scattered and flung itself to the wind in the ensuing chaos of Shield falling apart over the Potomac.

Something seemed different.

Tony blinked slowly and stared. The hallway was slick and bright with blood. It had splattered on the walls, the ceiling and liberally coated the floor along with countless bodies. In the middle of it the Winter Soldier stood tall and victorious.

Casting the incident with Steve aside Tony was quite sure the Winter Soldier had never failed a mission. He’d never been more grateful for that skillset then he was right now.

The knife was returned to its holster, the guns empty but secure, as the Soldier bent and collected a few discarded weapons. They were tucked away as Tony watched. Then piercing blue-grey eyes locked on him and the Soldier strode towards him with purpose in every single step.

It wasn’t quite the murder strut that Tony had come to appreciate when the Soldier took over, a walk that was unfairly arousing, but this one did remind him of a large, lethal predator stalking towards its prey.

Tony probably shouldn’t have felt safe having the full attention of someone so lethal fixated on him but the feeling of safety crested over him and he let himself get swept up in it without hesitation. “Hey there Winter Breeze.” He grinned up at the Soldier with a shaky, pained grin and watched lips quirk but Bucky never took the reins back and Tony didn’t feel an ounce of fear having the Soldier standing over him.

It was because of the same place in him that could never fear the Hulk despite innate instinct, an instinct that was often times a mere whisper and easily shoved aside, that demanded he show caution around something that could effortlessly end his existence.

“Didn’t notice I’d picked up a shadow.” He watched the Soldier take in his injuries, eyes roaming over Tony’s trembling body and taking in every detail. “The Winter Stalker.”

Bucky was going to be lucky if the Soldier gave back control any time soon. Stupid overprotective deadly assassins and thinking he was nothing but a squishy human in need of constant protection. He would have pouted if it wasn’t for the horrific pain and the huge part of him that wanted to slip into unconsciousness because the Soldier could take care of things from here.

Silently, in his own mind, he could admit he was a bit squishier then he wanted to be and it wasn’t horrible to have someone watching his back when he needed help. It was a less lonely and miserable even if he was going to spend the next however many weeks healing with an assassin making sure he followed doctor’s orders to the letter.

“Where is your armor?” there was a dark, vicious scowl. “Where is your backup?”

Bucky hadn’t been in the room when the details of the mission had been discussed. The promises of an easy, routine mission that required someone of Tony’s skill set to hack a server cut off from any network.

Natasha could hack some systems but this had been deemed far too advanced for any of the other Avengers or the ex-Shield agents that Stark Industries had absorbed in the fallout. It was a need to know mission that Tony had believed was as easy as they claimed.

It seemed nothing was really easy.

“Stealth was needed.” Tony frowned, “Easy in and out.”

That should have been the first hint. This was what he got for listening to Maria Hill and, by proxy, Nick Fury who was lingering in his life like an unwanted ghost that needed to be exorcised.

Fucking super spies.

Fucking Hydra.

Fucking routine, easy fucking missions that were the exact opposite.

“Base was supposed to be abandoned.” He added completely unhelpfully. It might be the blow to the head or possibly the blood loss that was muddling things up. At this point it was probably a combination of the two but he was working on ignoring both.

The Soldier looked back at the bodies littering the floor, the blood a vivid splash of color in an unnaturally white hallway. “Abandoned." there was a scoff in his tone. "The handler gave you faulty information.” The tone was unimpressed as the Soldier looked back at him and Tony didn’t bother to correct the slip into referring to Maria as Tony’s handler. No one handled him and he'd show anyone who thought he should be handled exactly what he thought about that in the most destructive way imaginable. “You’re injured.”

“The mission was successful.” Tony grinned shakily even as he used the Soldier’s preferred vernacular, “Got the data and fried their system. I didn’t plan for the party crashers or the explosion.”

He preferred to be the one making things explode.

Tony watched the Winter Soldier crouch down in front of him, hand gently gripping his chin and turning his head, as blue-grey eyes scanned his face and took in the pain that was no doubt filling his eyes.

At this point Tony couldn’t have hoped to hide the feeling even if there had been a gun to his head. “How about an extraction, Snowflake? I could really use one.” Tony wanted to burrow into his boyfriend’s hold, he didn’t care which one was in the driver’s seat, and forget this entire thing. “Can we go home? I’m tired of playing spy and getting blown up.”

Metal fingers checked his body, never applying too much pressure, as the Soldier took stock of his injuries and adjusted accordingly. The touch was careful and almost embarrassingly cautious as Tony was lifted from the ground. He found himself cradled against warm leather as he registered the touch of metal underneath him where his left arm was supporting Tony. The familiar scent of spices, leather and metal filled his senses as Tony breathed in and let it ground him.

“How’re you gonna fi—?” he cut off with a low moan of pain.

Tony gritted his teeth and closed his eyes, shoving his face against the Soldier and hating the words ‘easy’ and ‘routine’ even more in that moment. They were right up there with ‘board meetings’, ‘Tony no’ and ‘You can’t do that, Tony’.

“Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck.”

He could feel the Soldier’s building snarl of fury and relaxed at the obvious sign of anger when another sound of pain escaped him against his will. That sound might terrify others but not Tony. The Winter Soldier had _never_ laid a hand on him, had never hurt him, since Steve had first brought him back to the Tower and Bucky Barnes had looked at him with impossibly lost blue-grey eyes that had made Tony desperate to fix _everything_ wrong in the world if only to take that look away.

“Are there—?”

“Dead.”

Tony believed him. If the Winter Soldier told you someone was dead then they were deader than a normal person might find themselves. The bodies littering the ground were a firm testament that the Soldier hadn’t lost his touch. Tony’s eyes flicked around even as his mind started to drift and his body started to go pliant with the inevitable unconsciousness he could feel threatening to overcome him.

“Rest.” The voice was a soothing rumble, “You’re safe, _kotenok_. I’ll protect you.”

Tony let go of his hold on consciousness and slumped against the Soldier, a sigh escaping, as strong arms held him securely.

He knew the Soldier would see him out of the base, would watch over him every second a doctor worked on him and Tony knew he’d wake to the sight of a fully armed Soldier standing sentinel over him.

The last thing he registered was a soft kiss pressed against the top of his head and soft words whispered in Russian.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope some of you were looking for some protective Winter Soldier and, if so, that this fic fulfilled that particular need. There were a few different ways I thought about going with this but I liked the idea of an ambiguous mission going sideways and the Winter Soldier, upon learning about Tony's solo mission, followed his precious mechanic.
> 
> Personally I love Protective Bucky and I really love Protective Winter Soldier. This particular fic is set in a world that pretty much ignores IM3, AOU and bits of CATWS because I wanted too.
> 
> Hopefully, despite the lack of smut, you all actually enjoyed this one. It is a bit different from what I've posted so far (and I'm a bit unsure on how I feel about it myself) so I've got my fingers crossed. I'll see about making sure the next one is a bit more interesting.


End file.
